


Job Placement

by lumberwoof



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Gen, a fun little 'what-if' for Nicole's backstory, minor spoilers for the season 2 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 05:02:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumberwoof/pseuds/lumberwoof
Summary: Nicole Haught has a personal case she's been investigating for years, and now her investigation has attracted some unwanted attention. Pre-Series.





	Job Placement

**Author's Note:**

> just a fun little fic for a fun little theory I've been messing around with. might add a couple more parts to this if I get the inspiration.

The truth is that Nicole Haught has been investigating the Cult of Bulshar since she was a teenager, when she found a strange collection of photos of a well-dressed man with a black-jeweled ring in a shoebox belonging to her father. Before her parents sent her to live with her grandmother, when they silently said she wasn't welcome back with their heavy eyes and wooden expressions.

It’s what pulls her through college, what drives her to pursue a major in Criminal Justice, it’s why she takes a gap year to travel to the places where there’s been rumours of cult activity.

It’s why there’s a tall man in a suit waiting inside her apartment when she comes home one day from academy training. He’s an intruder, but he makes no means to hide himself - he’s attempting to exude authority, authority that overwrites the day-to-day laws she lives by, works by even.

“Nicole Haught,” he addresses her without preamble. No smile, no scowl, just a flat expression.

_Don’t escalate the situation,_ she thinks. Eyes running over the lines of his suit to see if there’s the bulk of a holstered gun underneath. There is, at his hip. She’s at a disadvantage.

“Who are you?”

“Deputy Marshall Dolls, Black Badge Division,” he produces a badge from his suit, holds it out towards her - not to look, but to take.

She closes the distance warily, stretching her arm to take the badge and inspect it up close. U.S. Marshall, but the badge isn’t gold, it’s charcoal. Fitting, she thinks, for something called the Black Badge Division. If it’s a fake, it’s a very, very good one. There’s no indication it’s been forged other than her complete unfamiliarity with the division, but there are two flags - Canadian and American - cut in half and spliced together to make a single one.

Cross-border.

She memorizes his badge number.

“Never heard of your division,” Nicole says, handing the badge back. “But I assume that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

This does bring something resembling the barest hints of a smile to his lips. “Something like that,” he says, tucking his badge away and bringing his hands behind his back again. He’s standing at ease. Former soldier. “Your investigation into the Cult of Bulshar has attracted some attention in the agency.”

Her investigation is a secret. They both know this. So they’ve been keeping tabs on her for a while. It also means Black Badge is more of an intelligence agency than a law enforcement agency, but she already figured that by the suit. Regardless, corruption is a common stain on both, and she isn’t sure that her investigation catching the attention of an agency she’s never heard of is a good thing. Not when it comes to a cult that spans countries and infects people from all walks of life.

Her personal gun is in the safe on the other side of the room - Deputy Marshall Dolls is in the middle of the path from her to it.

“What of it?” she asks.

The Deputy Marshall steps back, towards the kitchen table where a bunch of folders are stacked. He starts spreading them out, opening one and placing it on the edge nearest her, so she can see. “We’re impressed. You’re thorough. We want to extend an offer.”

“An offer for me? Or for my research?” Nicole asks.

Dolls purses his lips, as if he’s thinking about an answer, and in that moment, Nicole realizes that he can’t be much older than her, maybe by a year or two. He’s new at this stuff, too, and she might be able to press an upper hand if she plays her cards right.

“I want to extend an offer,” he corrects, and she pauses. “My superiors don’t see the cult as a threat, but I believe they’re wrong. And I believe your investigation shows that.”

“And what do you want from me?”

“Cooperation,” Dolls says easily. “I could deputise you to be my partner, but you’re more help if the agency doesn’t think you’re associated with me.”

Working outside the bounds of what seems like a federal agency sounds like a bad time. Sounds like grounds for treason. But if Dolls isn't lying, then Nicole is so close to finding out the truth. Hell, even if Dolls _is_ lying, his appearance means something - _that,_ she believes - and she’s determined to follow this lead to the ends of the earth.

“Okay, say I agree to work with you, what did you have in mind?”

“Your investigation is good, but it’s missing a few pieces that Black Badge had access to, I put everything together and found the epicentre,” Dolls taps the open folder on the kitchen table. “You can also feel free to arm yourself if it makes you feel safer,” he says, gesturing to the gun safe. “I’m here to be an ally, not an enemy.”

Nicole strides past him, warily, and opens her gun safe. Inside, there’s her personal sidearm, a Walther PP she’d procured one afternoon after a girlfriend, at the time, had joked about her being lesbian James Bond. Next to it is a government issue Glock, with a tactical flashlight attached to the underbarrel. There’s two silencers, unattached, stored safely. Three boxes of new ammunition sit on a separate shelf.

“A gift,” Dolls says.

She takes the Walther and slides in a clip that’s already been loaded, gently tucking it into the back of her pants.

“This epicentre?” she asks, bringing them back to their previous conversation, now that she feels a bit more in control.

Dolls nods to the open folder again, and she walks towards the kitchen table, skimming over the contents.

“Basically, I’d like you to get a position at the Sheriff’s Department here. But don’t be too obvious about it. It’s a small town that doesn’t get a lot of outsiders. Make it look like the Sheriff recruited you, not the other way around. I can pull some strings to help with that.”

“I still haven’t finished academy,” Nicole says absent-mindedly as she looks over the final pieces she’s been missing. Things start to fall into place, but something still doesn’t seem quite right, doesn’t seem _humanly possible_ about what she’s reading. “And I was going to take the summer off after, before I was placed anywhere.”

It was going to be her first time traveling just for the fun of it, without being driven by her investigation. _I was going to go rock-climbing in Nevada,_ she thinks.

“Don’t change your plans. It’ll be good for your cover, to not look too eager. There’s nothing in that town except coyotes, demons, and a bad hockey team.”

She looks up sharply at the word demons, wondering if she’d misheard. He must’ve been making a joke, but he sounded so serious. Dolls starts to collect the folders though, as if he didn’t say anything out of the ordinary, stuffing them all into a briefcase with the exception of the one he’s left her to read.

He pulls a burner phone from his jacket and places it on the table. “Contact me through this when you get there,” he says firmly. Then, “Good day, Cadet.”

When he stands briefly at attention, so does she - a reflexive habit from the use of her rank.

He leaves, locking the door behind him with a key. She makes a note to change the locks tomorrow. Calamity Jane sneaks out from the bathroom where she’d been hiding, mewing softly and winding between Nicole’s ankles with nervous energy, tail half fluffed.

Nicole looks down at the folder still on the table, at the name of the town that is supposedly the epicentre of all of this.

“Purgatory, huh?"


End file.
